Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Barbra Streisand’s private music vault holds all the master
tapes she’s recorded for five decades. Now, she’s sharing 11 previously
unreleased songs, spanning a cross-section of her career from 1963 to the
present.

For the first time Barbra Streisand has curated a release of
her previously unreleased material. In an unparalleled career, Barbra has
accumulated over 100 previously unreleased recordings. She has painstakingly
gone through the recordings to come up with this collection - “ReleaseMe.”

Highlights include a striking version of “I Think It’s Gonna
Rain Today” with Barbra on vocals and Randy Newman on Keyboards from 1971 and
“With One More Look,” an unreleased track from A Star Is Born. This is Barbra's
first ever compilation of unreleased material in a career that has spanned 50
years.

With the exception of two songs where the original masters
couldn't be located, all the tracks on Release Me were transferred from first
generation master tapes. Every attention was paid to preserving the sonic
perspective of the sessions as they were originally recorded and mixed.

An eight-time Grammy Award winner who is the only performer
to have number one albums in five consecutive decades, her 51 gold albums, 30
platinum and 18 multi-platinum, each of which, according to the Recording
Industry Association of America, exceeds all other female singers. Only Elvis
Presley has achieved more Gold albums than she. The RIAA also notes that her 71
million albums sales tops the RIAA list of album sales by a female singer. With
the recent debut at #1 of her “Love Is The Answer” album, her 9th record to
reach that top spot, the time-span between her first and most recent Number One
albums, exceeding that of any other performer or act, is now 46 years. Her most
recent album, “What Matters Most,” debuting at Number 4, was her 31st to reach
the Top Ten in the ratings charts, with which she passed The Beatles to become
the third highest achiever in that significant statistic, exceeded only by the
Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra.

"When I first began recording in the early 1960’s, we
made entire albums in three days... we would try to do four songs in a
three-hour session. Usually the last song got short-changed! Back then, we only
had 4-tracks to record on... and that was for the orchestra and the vocal, so
we didn’t have space to fix things. If I didn’t like a few notes or the
arrangement wasn’t exactly right, I wouldn’t release the song. After all,
records are forever! Many of the songs on this album only had one or two takes
to choose from. That’s because we simply ran out of time, or possibly some
musicians had another session to go to, or maybe another artist had booked the
studio we were working in. Once I finish making an album, I rarely listen to
it. So it was quite interesting to go through the vaults, find these recordings
and hear them again with the benefit of hindsight. You could say I’m more
forgiving of myself now. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I
actually like the overall recordings, even with their flaws. Although I could
have re-sung certain lines where I thought they could be improved, I decided to
leave every vocal the way it was. The thing I’m happiest about is that I have a
great affection for all these songs. They appealed to me at the time... and
still do. For better or worse, I’m much less of a perfectionist these days.
Listening now, I actually think to myself, “The girl wasn’t half bad.” - Barbra
Streisand

The Vault:

"Before entering, take a moment to imagine the sum
total of your life’s work in one climate-controlled room. As you’re about to
see, when it comes to Barbra Streisand’s legendary fifty-years of recorded
music, this is exactly what you’ll find inside the vault.

"After you sign-in and security opens the reinforced
locked door, the first thing you’ll notice are the floor-to-ceiling shelves
with tape boxes from every era of her recording career – People, Color Me
Barbra, A Star Is Born, The Bon Soir, Daniel Ellsberg Fundraiser, Judy Garland
Show, The Hungry-I, McGovern Concert, Guilty, Yentl... on and on... titles both
iconic and unfamiliar... public and private... released and unreleased.

"There are safety reels (copies of original master
tapes) and slave reels (sub-mixes created before the final mixes). Inside every
box (hopefully) are ledgers indicating on which track(s) each section of the
orchestra and Barbra’s vocals reside. On the floor you’ll notice large storage
containers of cassettes, DATs (digital audio tape), micro-cassettes, VHS and
Betamax tapes. Then there are more rows of shelves holding the digital era
48-track tapes and carrying cases with Pro-Tools files, which hold an infinite
number of tracks... Back To Broadway, The Prince of Tides, The Movie Album, The
Mirror Has Two Faces, Higher Ground, Clinton Benefit, A Love Like Ours, Madison
Square Garden 2000, Love Is The Answer, Obama Benefit, What Matters Most,
Women’s Heart Fund 2012...

"Even under ideal conditions, some of these tapes begun
to oxidize. In order to play them back without damage, they have to be 'baked'
and then transferred into a digital format for preservation.

"Once your mind takes in the sheer volume of the
vault’s contents, another thought emerges... namely, how incredible it is that
all these tapes and boxes reflect the evolution of a single artist. It is
nothing less than the repository of a series of dreams that grow from youthful
exuberance to adult resolve... and the thousands of hours of work it took to get
there.

"All of Barbra’s glorious music... her ideas... the
collaborative efforts of the fortunate songwriters, arrangers, mixers and
producers who came into her orbit... the experiments... the occasional missteps
and the many triumphs - all driven by the unstoppable force of one woman’s
vision.

"Finally, it should be noted that there are still
several empty shelves waiting to be filled with her future dreams. - Please
come inside." - Jay Landers, Hollywood,
CA, 2012

Features:

• 180g Vinyl

• All except
two songs were transferred from first generation master tapes

*** LP Pressed in USA

Selections:

Side A:

1. Being Good Isn't Good Enough (from Hallelujah, Baby!)

2. Didn't We

3. Willow
Weep For Me

4. Try To Win A Friend

5. I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today

6. With One More Look At You (from A Star Is Born)

Side B:

7. Lost In Wonderland

8. How Are Things In Glocca Morra?/ Heather On the Hill
(from Finian’s Rainbow/Brigadoon)

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